


The Unexpected Benefits of Physiotherapy

by Severina



Category: Live Free or Die Hard (2007)
Genre: Community: smallfandomfest, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-27
Updated: 2015-06-27
Packaged: 2018-04-06 10:11:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4217667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matt lifted his chin and took a deep breath of the cloying August air, and checked the pedometer that Carmen had given him as a parting gift after their last torture session. He set the button before stepping off the porch with an air of determination. Five miles. He could do that. Piece of cake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Unexpected Benefits of Physiotherapy

**Author's Note:**

> Written for LJ's smallfandomfest for the prompt 'unexpected'
> 
> * * *

"I want you to start walking again," Carmen said.

"Again?" Matt grunted. He twisted around to look at the therapist – as much as he could from within the medieval torture device in which he was strapped, trapped, and held immobile by a series of weights and pulleys – and squinted through his sweaty bangs. The look on Carmen's face reminded him very much of a similar expression he'd seen before, and it took him a moment to place it. John McClane, mocking him about jogging. After his apartment exploded but before the helicopter joined it.

Carmen nudged his glasses up on the bridge of his nose before making a minute adjustment on the device that had Matt biting back a curse. "Start out slow," he continued. "One mile, every other day."

Matt blinked, considering. If Carmen thought that he could start walking without his crutches, it might mean that he'd be spending less time being physically abused in the name of physiotherapy. Work hard enough at it and he'd be completely free of the torture chamber, sooner rather than later. He could do that. 

"Okay," he said.

* * *

Matt was fairly certain that the therapist he'd been assigned for his physio was a direct descendant of one of the members of the Spanish Inquisition – had, in fact, expressed this opinion to John frequently and eloquently on their long rides back from the medical centre – but the more he thought about it the next morning, the more he realized that this time the dude was finally saying something that made sense. Not that he relished the thought of pounding the pavement, especially since prior to getting a bullet in the kneecap the most exercise he'd ever had was the short walk from the computer to the door so he could pay the pizza boy. (Arnaldo. He missed that guy.) But he knows from experience that the only way you get better at something is to work at it. He didn't become one of the best programmers in the goddamn country through fucking osmosis, after all.

He'd had a good night's sleep – well, "good" being a relative term. He'd only woken up twice with nightmares (both of the "John's brains splattering on the concrete while he watches, helpless to stop it" variety, and he never thought he'd agree that _shooting yourself in the fucking shoulder_ was a viable hostage solution until his sleeping brain reminded him otherwise) and both times he'd managed to get back to sleep after only a minimum of panicked breathing and mad clutching of the sheets. He hadn't even had to tiptoe down to John's room to assure himself that the man was still there, sleeping contentedly (damn him) and snoring while he drooled onto his pillow. Nor did he spend another fruitless twenty minutes each time, lying sleepless while his overactive brain tried to analyze why on earth it found even John's _drool_ rather… adorable. 

Stupid brain.

He'd fortified himself with a hearty breakfast of cereal and two cups of black coffee, testing himself by eating standing up at the counter as of old. His knee barely twinged. He was ready.

And one mile? Matt scoffed as he stood on the porch. One mile would hardly work up a sweat, and much as perspiration was disgusting and putrid unless it came in the course of more interesting and carnal pursuits… or when it was present because one's roommate was doing yet another set of reps and curls with a barbell and wearing one of those old, flimsy white wifebeaters that were practically worn through in spots and damn his brain for immediately taking that thought and running with it, he had to concentrate damn it. 

Right. One mile was for wusses. He'd do five, and when John got home that night he'd crow about how he kicked fucking ass at this whole walking thing, and John would high-five him and give him that crinkly half-smile smirk that was _also_ all kinds of adorable, and then they'd ordered pizza. It wouldn't be from Arnaldo, but it'd still be pretty damn good.

Matt lifted his chin and took a deep breath of the cloying August air, and checked the pedometer that Carmen had given him as a parting gift after their last torture session. He set the button before stepping off the porch with an air of determination. Five miles. He could do that. Piece of cake.

* * *

Three hours later Matt dragged himself up onto the porch, his leg stiff and unbending, each movement sending a fresh spiral of pain from kneecap to thigh to hip. If he didn't know any better, he'd be sure that he was on fire. Literal fire. This, he thought hazily, must be what Johnny Storm felt like every damn day.

He'd come to the realization at about the two mile mark – the point when his knee started to spasm just a little with every step on the pavement, reminding him that hey, guess what, there was a goddamn bullet in there six weeks ago – that maybe Carmen actually knew what he was talking about. Since he was supposedly an expert in his field and all. But Matt had reminded himself that complacency didn't get him to where he was in the programming field (and okay, maybe he was avoiding the fact that 'where he was' was basically currently unemployed, unemployable for the foreseeable fortune, completely broke, physically handicapped, and with the threat of unlikely but possible prosecution by the United States government hanging over his head) and it certainly wouldn't heal his damn leg. So maybe five miles was a bit of an overenthusiastic goal. But he could do two and a half miles. Absolutely. No question.

It was only when he glanced down at the pedometer and saw that he'd reached his goal that he abruptly realized that he'd have to actually walk _back_ to the house. Because sometimes? He was a complete idiot.

And, he considered as he fumbled his key into the lock, he was also a stubborn idiot. Because, okay, fine, _he_ personally doesn't have any money to speak of. But he was well aware of the stash of "emergency funds" that John kept tucked in the top of Lucy's old bowling trophy, and he's also one thousand percent certain that John would consider "can barely keep himself upright without suffering stabbing almost insurmountable pain" to be a certifiable emergency. So he really could have flagged down a cab and then dashed – well, hobbled – inside to grab some bills and pay the dude. But his damn pride wouldn't let him. 

His pride was as stupid as his brain, sometimes. 

It took him approximately seventeen hours to get the door open before he finally stumbled inside, leaning against the wall and letting his eyes close briefly in the blessed cool of the air conditioning. His knee throbbed, strangely in time to the refrain of "you are a fucking idiot" repeating on a loop through his head, but he allowed himself only a moment to rest before he pushed off from the wall, his lip curling at the stench emanating from his body even as his knee again protested his mistreatment. He shook the sweat-soaked hair out of his eyes and forced himself down the hall, leaning heavily onto the wall to take the pressure off his knee and resolutely ignoring the pinprick of tears. Fine, maybe he overextended himself today. But he could fix this.

A bath. A bath would set everything to rights.

And by the time he'd carefully lowered himself into the water and let the heat soak into his bones, he was actually starting to believe it. He leaned back into the tub, closed his eyes. Stretched out his leg cautiously and relaxed his shoulders when his knee merely twinged slightly. A twinge he could deal with. A red hot poker slicing through his tendons, not so much. So he soaked as long as the water stayed hot, and finally eased himself out of the tub with what may quite possibly have been a cocky grin on his face. Five miles. He actually did it, and he didn't die. Take that, knee.

Then he set his foot on the cool tile floor outside the tub, and nearly collapsed. The pain flared back even worse than before, a sharp cutting edge of molten glass that forced a gasp from his lips. Matt flailed and nearly toppled, a wild grab for the towel rack the only thing that kept him upright. He blinked past the blinding white light behind his eyes and for a long agonizing moment he actually thought he might vomit and pass out, or pass out and then vomit, and it was only the thought of John McClane returning home from work to find his roommate crumpled on the floor in a pool of puke-scented Count Chocula that enabled him to lurch from the bathroom and down the hall. He was vaguely aware that he'd broken out in a sweat again, and the room was spinning, and he really, _really_ just needed to lie down. 

He flopped down onto the bed on his back, closed his eyes. Just needed to rest. Just for a minute.

* * *

"Matt. Matt. MATTHEW."

Matt opened one eye blearily, blinked in the late afternoon gloom. For a moment he couldn't get his bearings, the position of the sunlight slanting through the seam in the curtains throwing him off, and he could only turn his head wearily toward the sound of the voice.

Where he found John, standing casually in the doorway, sunglasses still dangling from his fingers. John, with that sly little smirk twisting up one side of his face, that smirk that made Matt's insides twist and curl. 

"John?" Matt said groggily. 

"Got it in one," John said. He leaned one shoulder against the jamb, raised a brow. "Now maybe ya wanna tell me why you're naked in my bed?"

Matt lifted his head, stared down the length of his body and frowned. He was, indeed, naked. And the comforter on which he was laying was most definitely not the 'cavorting bunnies in a field of wildflowers' monstrosity that covered his own bed, the one that John said was left over from when Lucy was twelve and she should have (but hardly ever did) been visiting him occasionally from California. Not that he could ever picture Lucy enjoying cavorting bunnies, not even when she was a kid. Sometimes he wondered just how little John knew his own daughter. 

He blinked again, still more than half asleep, and opened his mouth to explain. "Uhh…" he said.

That smile got a little smirkier (totally a word, Matt thought in his daze, and if it's not it should be) and John huffed out a silent laugh. "Well," he said, "that clears it up."

Matt opened his mouth again, because it was coming back to him now – Carmen and his stupid _walking_ therapy, and pain, and really _really_ not wanting to dig into John's trophy stash to pay for a taxi when it was his own damn fault that he got into the predicament in the first place – but then John shifted and it pulled the T-shirt snug against his chest and other parts of Matt's body started to wake up, too.

He let his head fall back against the pillow, closed his eyes. Not now. Please not now.

"Huh," John said. 

Matt has always prided himself on his quick thinking. But now here he was, lying in John McClane's bed with his cock stirring between his legs and his mind had gone thoroughly, glaringly blank. This was definitely not how it was supposed to go. Every single fantasy he's had since he joined John in the Kaludis's car on that crazy road trip from hell (including the first one, the dream that he had sleeping against the window while John drove through the night and worried about his daughter and refined his plan of 'save Lucy, kill everybody else') had involved John doing something like pushing him up against a wall or suddenly kissing him while they're both prone on the floor during a hail of gunfire. There has never been a single solitary erotic dream that involved him being woken from a pain-induced blackout only to find his traitorous dick announcing his intentions without his consent.

He squinted his eyes even more determinedly shut when the mattress dipped with John's weight, and licked his dry lips. Any moment now and John would slap him on the arm, tease him for having a morning woody in the middle of the goddamn day, and Matt would wince and nod and crawl from the bed and hobble to his room and—

And then John's fingers curled around his cock.

Matt's eyes flew open, his hips involuntarily lifting from the bed, his focus darting away from ridiculous fantasies and embarrassing walks of shame and narrowing instead to the touch of John's hand between his legs. John's fingers were cool against the heat of his skin, his grip just a little on the wrong side of too tight, and with every pull of his fist Matt felt himself firm a little more in John's grasp. He couldn't breathe, couldn't move, certainly couldn't think. The only thing he _could_ do was swivel his head on the pillow, meet John's eyes. 

"You want me to stop," John said quietly, his hand stilling, "I'll stop."

Matt hesitated. His legs had fallen open of their own accord as soon as John started touching him (and, he realized, the stabbing agony of his knee had quickly abated to little more than a dull ache, yay for sex as the ultimate painkiller) and a quick glance at the bulge in John's jeans showed him that John was as interested in the proceedings as he was. But Matt was used to studying all the angles, to doing the research, to ferreting out the truth behind the official story. This, what they were doing right here, right now? This was jumping without a parachute, walking the high wire without a net. This was John McClane territory.

But maybe he'd studied John McClane long enough.

His hand came up to fist in the material of John's shirt, to tug him down until their lips were inches apart. This close, John's face was little more than a blur in his vision, crooked nose and sea-green eyes and still-healing scar on the bridge of his cheekbone. But he could see enough to tell that John wasn't shocked or surprised; that John was simply waiting patiently, placidly, for Matt to make up his mind. 

He closed the distance between them until their lips met, warm and dry. Practically chaste. And when he opened his eyes John was once again wearing that smirk that made his stomach flip-flop, but it was okay because Matt was pretty sure there was a matching one on his own face.

"Don't stop," he said.


End file.
